A path through the snow on New Year’s Day. This year for tiny farming here will be different. More of a focus on repair—equipment, greenhouses—and generally organizing. After years of putting some things off, it’ll be fun to tackle them!
See through the trees
Say what you want about the harshness of the winter season, at least you can see through the trees! It changes things up. In summer, a dense deep green privacy wall across the little meadow that could be called a lawn. When the leaves are gone, you can look past to the hillside across the hidden pond. This slice of the view is dense with fallen branches snapped by wind and ice storms. There are also window-like gaps where in summer you can see cows grazing on the hill.
Firewood drop-off
First firewood delivery of the season, tumbled onto the lawn. This is from a property further north that has an endless supply of downed trees from the wind storm a few years ago, and the more recent ice storm. When you have many acres of woods and no logging operation, a severe tree-felling weather event can create a lot of dead wood. This is some of it!
Small potatoes
At the end of a brutally dry and hot summer, late planted potatoes manage to come through, tasty though overall quite tiny. Intended for personal use, a little winter stash that won’t last long!
Cows across the way
Cows grazing away from their home on rented pasture, on a delightful, newly-seasonable warm and sunny end of September day. You can’t tell from the zoomed photo, but they’re around 400′ (122m) away, seen through an opening in the trees. Being calmly stared at by cows at a distance is a fact of life that I finally just looked into. Cows apparently have amazing, better-than-human motion detection, near 360° vision with eyes on the sides of their heads, and an exceptional sense of smell that literally works for miles. They detect you from afar, then turn to stare with both eyes (binocular vision), so they can check you out in three dimensions to better decide what you’re up to. Peacefully grazing, always aware!
Curing garlic
The invasion of the leek moths a few weeks back left the garlic somewhat ravaged but unbeaten. The moth larvae seem to have been stopped up top, snipped and pinched and dug out before they had a chance to tunnel their way down through the stems, reaching the bulbs, and eating into them as well. Instead of that, the harvest has turned out just fine. The bulbs overall are a bit on the smaller side, but the cloves are nicely filled out, so…all’s well. A few weeks of air drying till everything’s woody and brown, then done!
Best lettuce!
Just watered heads of Mezquite lettuce, doing well given all the heat they’ve had to deal with over the last weeks. This is a great, fast-maturing romaine lettuce. It’s sweet and crunchy, even in full summer heat that makes most lettuces strong flavored, with a slightly bitter edge.
I grew up with mild lettuce, the standard supermarket fare that’s sourced from wherever the crop grows most abundantly. Here in the mixed veg world of the tiny market garden, no crop can expect its own perfect conditions. That doesn’t mean inferior vegetables, instead, you get a full range of tastes. Grown in summer heat, lettuce often develops a full-bodied flavor and a pleasing hint of bitterness—with a little oil and vinegar, salt and pepper, or in a sandwich, it’s a whole new, elevated taste bud experience!
Anyhow, this Mezquite variety combines full flavor with sweetness, holds up well in all conditions, matures a week or two faster than most other romaines, and is even open-pollinated so you can save the seed. As long as a roving critter doesn’t breach the defenses, like the row cover these guys spend much of their time under, they’re a treat in the making! I harvested a couple today for early tasting purposes…